


Love is the Malfunction of Ones and Zeros

by windlost



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, The Sims 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windlost/pseuds/windlost
Summary: Lu Han is certain he doesn’t need other people, well at least not people who are outside of his control.
Relationships: Huang Zi Tao | Z.Tao/Oh Sehun, Huang Zi Tao | Z.Tao/Wu Yi Fan | Kris, Lu Han/Oh Sehun
Kudos: 7





	Love is the Malfunction of Ones and Zeros

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published to Livejournal back around 2012. Collecting here for posterity and also to give future me the joy and pain of rereading my old works.

The game he preorders months in advance, even offering up an additional charge to his credit card for rushed postal service, isn’t released on time and the company also doesn’t do home deliveries. 

Unfortunately, he has to get dressed, and put on shoes, and actually drive to the nearest Game Stop. Lu Han stares at his drastically undersupplied wardrobe. 

It is very unpleasant. 

“I need your credit card.” The cashier states impatiently.

Lu Han ruffles through the pockets of his jeans to retrieve his waterproof velcro wallet and when he does, he notices his pants are a little tighter than usual. 

The cashier—Yi Xing, Lu Han reads from the sideways nametag—holds up the card and frowns at Lu Han. A few crumbs fall from the wrinkles in the fabric of his sweatshirt as he scratches the red bull stain on the left sleeve. 

▲

Lu Han is sure he’s heard of the name somewhere, maybe off of one of the fashion magazines his roommate Tao leaves lying around. 

At least this is his justification when he names his first character Oh Sehun, who is charismatic, a mooch, a heavy sleeper, a natural cook, and good. 

It has a nice ring. Lu Han sings it in his head while he adjusts the height and weight and tries out the new skins he downloaded, which, the creator ensured, have more realistic muscle definition. 

Lu Han dresses the boy in swimwear and zooms in. 

Yep. It’s pretty realistic. 

Halfway through picking out Sehun’s everyday wear, Lu Han has to save and quit the game because he sees than none of the pants he downloaded really go with the blue shirt he likes so much. They all come with rather tasteless belts and don’t really flatter Sehun’s thighs, which Lu Han made sure to download a slider mod for so he could adjust them to be very flattering. 

Three hours later, his desktop is cluttered with zip files and he’s too tired to play. 

▲

“When’s the last time you left this room.” The first thing Tao asks, crinkling his nose as he raises the blinds and opens a window. He finally lets go of the breath he’s holding once fresh air permeates the room. 

“What?” Lu Han stares at him with bloodshot eyes. Tao blinks.

“Never mind.” He changes his jacket and leaves his roommate alone.

Lu Han leans back in his computer chair, stretching the first three fingers of his left hand, which have been resting on the 1, 2, and 3 keys since the morning. He glances at the clock, ten hours ago. 

With free will enabled, Sehun uses Lu Han’s temporary break from the controls to introduce himself to the girl sitting outside Divisadero Budget Books. 

“Abondandlain... en som?” Sehun says in a deliciously charismatic voice.

She giggles and nods her head enthusiastically. The relationship meter goes from “Jamie Jolina thinks Oh Sehun is okay” to “Jamie Jolina thinks Oh Sehun is being friendly.” 

Lu Han shakes his head.

He spends the next twenty minutes trying to absorb her into the household, which is effectively faster with testing cheats enabled true, and once he does so, he locks her in a doorless room and sets it on fire.

Lu Han rubs his stomach jubilantly when a tombstone occupies the square where Jamie Jolina once stood. He decides he’s hungry, and so he has Sehun serve some ratatouille. 

▲

Lu Han has planned out his course schedule in a way that minimizes time spent outside, so when Tao presents his proposition, he is not very happy.

“This is my place, too.”

“Just for a couple of hours.” Tao shouts from the bathroom. “It won’t take long.”

He says something else, but it can’t be heard over the whirl of the blow dryer.

“But I don’t like the library.” Lu Han says once it stops. He flicks a piece of potato chip off his thigh. The idea that Tao is kicking him out of his own apartment displeases him. Since when did they do things like that?

Tao flips through the contents of his own wardrobe, holding up two black jackets, which to Lu Han seem identical, and looking back and forth between them.

“I’m not saying you have to leave.” He compares the jackets in front of the full-length mirror at the foot of his bed. “Just don’t be…” 

Tao shakes his head, eyeing Lu Han with his greasy hair at shoulder length, gray sweatpants, and permanent dark circles under his eyes. “… you.”

Lu Han doesn’t know what to say.

“I—”

“Can you wash your hair?”

When he makes Lu Han smell the fragrances from two different bottles and asks him whether John Varvatos or Calvin Klein is more influential, Lu Han suddenly gets it and thinks that making the trek to the library would be much less bothersome. 

He gathers his laptop and charger and leaves with an exasperated “Fine.”

▲

Sehun ends up in jail, but only once and it’s enough to horrify Lu Han. No more hacking the government computers for Sehun.

▲

The third time Lu Han is kicked out of his apartment, he comes back a little too early and sees a leggy boy leaving. His attempt to hide by leaning against the wall and pretending to inspect the paint is rather useless because the boy doesn’t even glance at him. 

Tao just smiles smugly when Lu Han plugs in his laptop back in, resuming his position in front of his desk, only moderately irritated that he had to leave in the first place. 

“Aren’t you curious?” 

Lu Han scowls while clicking on the familiar plumbob icon, ignoring the disheveled sheets, “Ew no.”

“He’s in my accounting class.”

Lu Han wants the splines to reticulate faster. 

“Please stop.”

▲

Lu Han is mildly embarrassed when Yi Xing recognizes him, but he did come to Game Stop to pick up the new expansion pack in exactly the same clothing he wore the last time, with probably exactly the same stains. 

Yi Xing chuckles, very judgmentally, and offers him a plumbob tshirt for only $19.99 with his game purchase. Lu Han considers it for a moment, but black isn’t really his color.

▲

He works a few differential equation problems while waiting for installation. It takes longer than he would like and Lu Han doesn’t really want to find the volume of some rotated shape around x-axis, so he plays the memory game instead and receives his highest score yet. 

Later, Sehun lounges in the rooftop hot tub at Aquarius to relieve this academic stress, but of course, not until after Lu Han downloads designer swimwear. Sehun sips on a Woohoo on the Beach as the bubbles foam around him completely soothing and almost in rhythm with a jibberish version of Time Bomb playing from the stereo. Lu Han indirectly feels very relaxed.

“Yargbo bay tazzle?” Sehun spreads his arms against the side of the hot tub.

“I wouldn’t know…” Lu Han ponders for a moment, “Never been in a hot tub.”

Sehun kicks a bit of water. Bubbles go everywhere.

“Ib ou!” 

Lu Han ducks.

▲

“Etne condoroy” Sehun says with arm motions a bit exaggerated. The seasons never change; it’s always sunny in Sunset Valley. Sehun has to get up at five every morning to attend to the garden before the carpool arrives.

“I failed the Lit final.” Lu Han exhales. He’s never been a shining student, but at least he’s never failed anything before. The paperboy comes by, and a newspaper lands on the doorstep. The headlines are jibberish.

“My roommate’s dating someone.”

“Teg teg.” Sehun nods sympathetically. He waves cordially to a neighbor and then begins watering his apple trees. A few become ripe after he does so. “Tippaha yooredful.”

Lu Han picks at the command key on his laptop.

“Shabow.” Sehun says, smiling. He recycles some old newspapers.

Lu Han sighs. “I know…”

He some how finds solace in a language the rest of the world doesn’t speak, himself included. Sehun makes Lu Han some apple pancakes to cheer him up. Lu Han rewards him by downloading new hair mesh.

▲

Sehun picks up a guitar skill, and with the help of some mod scripts, he masters it within three days. Thus a discussion of his future ensues. Lu Han thinks he has music potential, but Sehun doesn’t really want to give up his culinary career.

They settle for Sunday shows in the park instead. A jar of donations is set on the side and proceeds go to the Sunset Hope Foundation and Sehun acquires a philanthropic reputation.

The townspeople clap and Lu Han feels rather good for having contributed.

▲

Tao moves out later that year. Something about exploring advantages of an exclusive relationship. 

The day of the move, Sehun’s mood bar is also rather yellow. Lu Han feeds him, bathes him, and lets him play a bit of foozball. 

Tao sorts all of his stuff into exactly fifteen boxes and by the time he finally packs it all into the car, Lu Han still hasn’t made the mood bar green. Then he sees the red icon of a lonely person in a window.

“Oh…”

Sehun uses the dishwasher even though there’s only one dirty plate. It bubbles and the mechanical sounds echo through the big empty house. The neighbors are all busy with their own lives. Sehun is on his own.

Tao runs back upstairs to return the keys. Lu Han doesn't even pause the game. 

"It's a five minute drive." He smiles then offers to buy him dinner next week.

Lu Han mumbles under his breath as Tao shuts the front door gently behind him.

It isn't until a few hours and Sehun’s final promotion to Celebrity Chef later, that Lu Han realizes Tao has never bought him dinner before, at least in the seven years Lu Han has known him, Tao has always managed to conveniently forget his wallet.

▲

Lu Han gets an A on a paper and celebrates by throwing a pool party at Le Petit Shark Pool Center and has Sehun invite the neighborhood.

He listens politely to Sehun gossip about the Alto family.

▲

“So.”

“So…”

Lu Han hears a bit of uncomfortable breathing on the other end of the line, which is unusual, so he feels uncomfortable in result. 

“There’s this place… uh Kr—I mean I’ve been there. Good food.” Tao pauses as if he’s thinking about what to say next, “we could... you know… next time.”

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah…”

Five minutes suddenly seem like a long distance away.

“Sehun learned how to make baked Alaska.” Lu Han picks at the command key on his laptop, “It looks good.”

“Who?”

“A friend.” He’s saying it deliberately, forcing nonchalance. “I think you’d like him. He has good taste in clothes.”

Lu Han listens for any indication of jealousy.

“Oh… cool.”

He hears muffled voices in the background and finds jealousy on the wrong end of the phone line. 

▲

After Sehun sells a siamese catfish for 35 simoleons at the grocery store, he expresses a desire to meet a significant other through a glowing square wish.

Lu Han right clicks on that wish immediately, effectively erasing it, but feels rather guilty for having done so.

A car turns the corner, sharply and exactly, not extending past the median of the road.

It takes a moment, but Sehun waves elatedly at him regardless, the thought completely vanished from his mind, and Lu Han decides to take the long route home to enjoy the sunset. 

Sehun walks perfectly in the center of the sidewalk.

▲

Over the thanksgiving holidays, Tao leaves a series of drunken voicemails on Lu Han’s phone. He replays them to Sehun so they can laugh together.

▲

When Tao stops coming by with empty promises of dinner, only replying to text messages with either “e___e” or L O L, and it feels like seven years of friendship has just vanished—replaced, rather—Lu Han moves himself to Sunset Valley. 

Lu Han who is a light sleeper, vegetarian, computer whiz, hydrophobic, and a hopeless romantic.

Sehun surprisingly already has a spare bedroom prepared with sheets in the exact shade of blue that Lu Han loves so much, and they share the baked alaska Sehun brags about having mastered.

“Hubble herbi?” Sehun asks, eyes inquisitively round, waiting for Lu Han to take the first bite.

“Sa dooga!” He nods, licking his lips very ungracefully.

“Shamo—

—Lu Han rips the battery out of his laptop. 

The screen blanks while the game script freezes in that exact moment—Lu Han holding a fork, Sehun's face forming the indication of a smile, and a four o'clock sun streaming in through the mock IKEA blinds—lines of binary code stopped before they can malfunction or worse, deteriorate. Lu Han takes a moment to breathe.

Tao eats dinner with someone else now.

Sehun and Lu Han eat cake together where it's always sunny in Sunset Valley.


End file.
